NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Adams County Board of Supervisors is being urged to get work started for completing the levee that will protect a key industrial site from Mississippi River flooding.
All the money – about $3 million — is in place to plan and build the levee’s last phase along with repairs for a nearby railroad.
“Funds are just sitting there, and we need to begin to use that. It just doesn’t need to sit there,” said Chandler Russ, executive director of Natchez Inc., the city-county’s industrial development agency.
Russ, who met Tuesday with the county board, noted state and federal funds have been allocated in recent years for the county-owned Belwood industrial site’s levee. Part of it has already been constructed with the funds previously received, and $1.8 million in state money was awarded last year to help fulfill the remaining amount needed to build the earthen levee’s final section.
Natchez Inc. has been working for years to get an industry to locate at the Belwood site, a former country club and golf course along the river prone to flooding.
A United Kingdom-based company has had an option to acquire the land and build a biomass-fuel refinery there. Plans are for Velocys’ billion-dollar Bayou Fuels plant to be built and operating in 2026. It will process wood debris from area timberlands to convert into jet fuel. It’s been projected the Natchez plant will employ about 100 people.
A total of about $5.8 million has been allocated for the levee from state and federal funds with no local matching funds required, according to Russ.
He noted the final amount for the levee project is about $1.9 million being flowed through his agency and $1 million to the Board of Supervisors. Some of the funds are also for improving rail tracks to the old International Paper site nearby – another tract of land the county board has to accommodate industries there.
Russ said engineering plans need to be drawn up so the board can seek levee builders to bid for the job.
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